Finalizing my build.

Decided to pull the 500GB KC2000 from the Guts and Glory build and pop it here.


So now the build is finalized. It looks kinda odd with the third drive tray being a Kingwin instead of an Olmaster, but it will do.

Also, got rid of the WiFi card. Turns out that they're still not supported in FreeBSD. Will need to get a 2.5gbps nic...

But yeah. The book closes on this build. For now. There are some upgrades I’d like to pursue, but it’s not possible for now.

So I took to thinking for a few days and decided that I will reinstall the Kingwin even though it looks jank. The silverstone bays can wait until March.


Took one hour to install, most of it spent cussing at how the additional cables are a pain to deal with. I also needed two SATA to Molex cables due to how these Kingwin trays requires its included Molex to SATA connectors should you need the drive access lights on the tray to work (the Molex cables have a breakout cable that plugs into a separate connector on the tray. Why they can't just integrate the lights into the trays PCB is anyone's guess). I also spent a good amount of time reattaching the CPU cooler's RGB cable to the Mobo which was difficult to install and I accidentally knocked off due to it's placement. While all the while cussing like a pissed off drunk sailor.

Not the end tho. I have one final change I want to deploy to the build.

Took the board to the usual shop and it booted up no problem. The board has made a mockery out of me.

However we found that the XPG SSD was faulty and was the cause of the constant freezing. Meaning the issues I have been having with this Mobo isn't even Asus's fault and would've happened even with zero hard drives connected to SATA, and was due to the XPG being a total POS. Epic facepalm. Switching to the Aorus just happened to solve the issue because I dumped the XPG for a Kingston as my cache disk.

Anyways, I got home, did a baseline reassembly, this time rotating the Wraith Spire CPU cooler 180° to face the back panel and using the Silverstone thermal paste, and did a smoke test, and it booted.

Seen here is the system running memtest86+.

Also found that the slim 80mm fans will not have it any other way: it's either exhaust or riot. The fan I configured for intake started making a loud scratching noise even though I moved the filter to the outside. So without a choice I configured it to exhaust again.

But when I finalized the machine, it refused to boot again. So I troubleshooted again and this time found the culprit: it was one of the drive trays. The supposedly least prone to failure part was the cause of the issue. Pulling it out fixed it.

So now the machine is limping along with only two drive trays.

I took apart the offending drive tray and found a burst capacitor and the circuit board FUBARred. I don't know why the capacitor burst, but I don't think I want to find out.



Considering three silverstone FS102S, because I don't know if the other two will eventually just fail like this one did.

So the power supply arrived on Wednesday as expected. I was too tired then, but yesterday I was fine so I completed the build. But first, let's take a look at the PSU.


This is a 1st Player SF 7.5. It's 750w and 80+ Platinum rated.


The PSU itself looks pretty normal from the top.


But from the front, notice how the PSU looks like the Lian-Li SP850. That's because it comes from the same company that OEMs for Lian Li, Helly Technology.


The familiarity extends to the back of the PSU, where the cables look cross-compatible. That would be one thing to check when I have the time.


The PSU comes with a free SFX to ATX adapter as promised. This should be something Lian Li should do with their SP850 PSU but doesn't. And the SF 7.5 was cheaper by 30 bucks compared to the SP750! And is 80+ Platinum certified!


Modular cables that came with the PSU. As mentioned before, these looks cross-compatible with the SP850, and I should investigate.


It comes with these extras. Bom for gaming... I hope not.


Moments later, the PSU is now on the adapter.


And then I encountered my first problem. For some reason CoolerMaster uses these proprietary 3/16 screws to mount the PSU to the case. They were apparently not compatible with the adapter and two stripped when I tried to screw the adapter down to the case. Frustrating.


Managed to force the two remaining screws to work, but yeah.


After 15 minutes later, everything has been wired in.


The mains is plugged in and switched on.


Then the time came for another smoke test...

And it failed. Power comes on for a split second before shutting off, indicative that the board is having a short somewhere.

I looked around and performed troubleshooting to the point where I have everything disconnected and out and it still won't boot.

*sigh* not again. I knew this board was already problematic from the start, but it still booted when I replaced it with the Gigabyte Aorus x470 Gaming Wi-Fi 5.

Proceeded to pack everything up, completely remove the board from the case, and pack it up. Looks like I'm going to have to take this to a shop to check.

Firstly, the power supply has been ordered. Barring any further setbacks (hoping the PSU comes with an ATX-to-SFX adapter like 1st Player's website says it does, otherwise we're going to be in for more waiting) we should be able to finish the build this weekend.

Secondly, it has been brought to my attention that FreeBSD has absolutely shite support for WiFi adapters. So I have two options: Dump FreeBSD and for the first time in over 15 years, use Linux to power my firewall again, or 2. Continue using an external smart WiFi to Ethernet bridge that I've been using all this while, which is a D-Link Wireless-AC to Gigabit bridge of several years old and there's no upgrade path (ie D-Link does not make a newer version of this device that supports WiFi 6 or 7). Third option is using WiFiBox on FreeBSD, but that puts me in a catch-22 situation (you need WiFiBox to get WiFi working, but to get WiFiBox you need a working WiFi adapter in the first place). Furthermore, I'll need to double down on the firewall configuration if I use this method, making it more convoluted than absolutely necessary.

Occam's razor suggests I go back to Linux as my firewall OS. But we'll see.

The solution for my GPU PCIe cable woe has arrived. The build quality isn't as advertised, but it'll do.


Also, I've had this wireless card for a while now. It was mothballed because it was useless with FreeBSD 12. Let's see if things have improved. This isn't intended to be permanent, just until I get a wireless BE router and PCIe card.


Lastly, I'm using the two spare thumb screws that came with the 205 Mesh C for locking the case so I can quickly service the machine if things go wrong.

Now this machine is also on the home stretch, lacking only the SFX PSU.

Depression hit me hard from out of nowhere and I decided to take a day off work. After a while at home boredom seeps in and my mind is out of control. Time for a bit of tinkering to get it to hyper focus and stop processing anything else.


First order of business: change the bottom Slim 8cm fan into intake. And yes I figured out a solution, and a simple one too: mount the filter on the outside.


Next, I attach a 12cm fan to the removable panel. Again it has a filter. As to where it is connected to, it turns out that the GPU has a PWM fan header on it...

Day 2. Put the front panel back on temporarily for a photo op.


The cable inside is a complete mess. And is only going to get worse.


I installed the GPU at this point to test if the case will be obstructed.


The answer: barely. Also, it might not be able to close once the PCIe power cable is in place. Thankfully there's a solution for that. But yeah, home stretch, just need the PSU now.

So I've taken the initiative to strip the case barebones prior. Everything went out and the case was cleaned up to my best effort. I was determined to take the RC360 to the 2020s.


The project commenced the moment the nylon standoffs arrived. Upon being satisfied that they're the same height as their brass counterpart, I had the brass standoffs removed and replaced them all with nylon standoffs.


Next, I turned my attention to the Mobo to be used for the project. The X470 TuF Plus Gaming is probably a bad choice for this, but it's coming out of retirement nonetheless for this project.


It gets the CPU and the CPU cooler from The Modest Build.


The RAM comes from a set of Ballistix Tactical that I have failed to pawn off. These RAM runs at 3000MHz, which in theory should match the Zen+'s ideal speed of 2933MHz. In practice this is not possible to meet because Asus does not include XMP support for their AMD motherboards and their DOCP doesn't work well, often times the RAM Overclock will fail.


The SSDs are the old Samsung 970EVO 256GB and AData XPG 128GB that was previously used by this very motherboard. Also, new NVRAM/RTC battery, so I don't have to dig into here again for a while.


With all that's done, the time has come to install the mobo into the case.


So far so good.

Next, we install the fans. The NO-12015 XT went in without a hitch.


The NO-8010 fans however were far more troublesome. Tests suggest that they do not like the 80mm air filters and would brush against it to make a grating scraping noise.

Decision was made to make all the 8010 fans exhaust.


In practice this will probably work against the RX 470, but ah well, I'll probably be able to work out an alternative idea.

Part of me wanted to stop here. but another part of me wanted to go on.


This is one of the three 2.5" disk trays that I have attached to a 5.25" tray with build in USB 3 socket. I actually ordered another one of those 5.25" trays once I decided I was satisfied with the thing.


Both trays, with the third 2.5" disk tray on it's on at the lone 3.5" disk slot.


Next thing I knew, I had wired up everything, installed a USB2 back panel taken from the Modest build, installed a COM port that was originally bought for this mobo, and a secondary PCIe gigabit card.

Cable management will be a pain, I'll say it now. The case was somehwat haphazardly designed. There is no way to route cables under the case for cable management.

Every few years, Cooler Master makes a case that looks neat but is impractical to work with. This is one of them (next to the Q500L I used for the M.U.S.S.E build).

At this point, I decided to really stop and take a break.